


No One Gets What They Deserve

by rhye



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Braime - Freeform, Brienne is pregnant, But she still dies by falling rocks, F/M, Fix It Fic, bran wargs into the horse, cersei is not pregnant, jumping off from episode 4, that horse though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 20:53:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19731574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhye/pseuds/rhye
Summary: When a horse throws Jaime shortly after he rides out of Winterfell, his ending is different.





	No One Gets What They Deserve

“She’s hateful, and so am I.”

Jaime mounted, his hands shaking. His hold body began to tremble, but he told himself he could not look back. _If I look back, I am lost._ He dug in his heels and willed his horse to leave Winterfell before his own weak nature lured him back to love and safety.

Mayhaps he dug in his heels a bit too hard. The horse stopped short, danced sideways, and Jaime tumbled to the mud not fifteen paces from the gate.

He’d been thrown from horses before. The breath was knocked out of him. His bones screamed in pain. But he knew this would fade. He waited it out, then stood, limping, to the side of his mount. The unhelpful beast had stopped to nibble grass as if nothing were amiss.

Jaime mounted again, because that was the way of it where horses were concerned, but he turned his mount back towards Winterfell. His ankle was still screaming in pain. Broken, he knew. Like her heart.

She still stood in the courtyard, tear tracks drying on her cheeks. Those cheeks were fire red. Not shame, but anger. “How dare you come back--”

“I was only gone thirty seconds!”

“But now I know you intentions. No doubt you will recover and ride off in a moment.”

He might have, yes, once. But his ankle still screamed, and his heart as well. His strength was all used up. “Intentions be damned, wench. I think I’ve broken my ankle.”

“I ought to thank the horse, then.”

“Mayhaps,” he groaned as he dismounted his traitorous ride. He saw the movement from the balustrade overhead. “Or mayhaps you ought to thank Brandon Stark.”

The comment confused Brienne, disarming whatever words she was preparing to throw at him. She followed his gaze to see Brandon Stark staring at them.

“Jaime Lannister,” Stark called down. “You believe your death in King’s Landing will have meaning? That it will change anything? You are not half as important as you seem to believe.”

“The babe--” Jaime called up.

“Cersei’s child has been dead for three moons.”

That _did_ give Jaime pause.

“I don’t deserve to live,” he called up to Stark. “I deserve the death planned for my sister. I was complicit in her crimes.”

Brandon Stark smiled, and it was unnerving. Had Jaime seen him smile before? “I did not deserve to be thrown from a window. Look around, Kingslayer. No one gets what they deserve in this world. Cersei Lannister will not get the death she deserves. Hers will be sudden and painless, free of judgement or revenge.”

“Jaime,” Brienne whispered, closing her hand around his shoulder. “Come inside. Let’s see to that ankle.”

“I--”

“Hush. I didn’t know she was with child. I understand--”

“You shouldn’t! You shouldn’t forgive me! I don’t deserve--” His lips stopped moving. Quietly, he whispered, “I don’t deserve your kindness. I don’t deserve _you_.”

“Luckily, no one gets what they deserve in this world.”

“I don’t want her to die.”

Brienne nodded. “Because she is your sister, and you have a good heart. But she is a world away from here, Jaime. If you set out on that ankle, you be eaten by a lizard-lion before you pass the Neck.” She slung his arm over her shoulders to help him hobble back inside.

He tried for some humor. “Would you avenge me?”

She smiled, though it didn’t touch her eyes. “I would be forced into a quest to slay the beast. I’d waste twenty years of my life, living off leaves and swinging from snakes through the bog.” They entered their room and she sat him down on the bed.

“Jaime--” she began.

He shook his head as tears began to spill from her eyes again. “Don’t,” he whispered. “If you cry over me, I will go on hating myself.”

“I need you to know--”

He stood, despite the pain that lanced up his leg. He pulled her into his arms, something he had been desperate to do since he first saw her outside in the night. “I know,” he whispered. “I love you too.” He pulled her down onto the bed, where he held her until she had sobbed all the tears within her.

“You’re an idiot,” she whispered under her breath. “I wasn’t going to say I love you. I was going to say you are an idiot.”

He laughed against her ear. “I know that, too.”

“You will have to regain my trust,” she backed away, looking hesitantly into his eyes. “But I do understand, if you feared for the babe.”

“Did you think I would go back to Cersei? After everything? After we-- Brienne. I have never, _never_ been with another woman--”

“I know.” She nodded. “I thought you wanted to die.”

“I deserve judgement. I deserve to die. I don’t _want_ to die. If we’re just asking what I want, it’s this, _only_ this, and mayhaps the chance to lay a cloak over your shoulders. But what I want has never mattered.”

“Does what I want matter?”

“It should. It does, to me.”

“And I want what you want. So stop being an idiot.”

He nodded, feeling dismal for his betrayal of her trust.

“One more thing,” she whispered. “I didn’t want to tell you, because I didn’t want you to stay for no other reason. That would have been worse, if you pitied me enough to stay. But with all the sorrow in the world, I thought it might cheer you to know. I’m with child.”

Now the tears were falling from _his_ eyes. How stupid was he. He was about to rush off to save a dead child, a caustic lover. He would have rushed away from a live child, and a woman who was so much more than he could even describe. So much better than he-- But no one gets what they deserve. And for that reason alone, he thought he had something to look forward to.


End file.
